POWERnews

On July 6, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), which requires 27 states in the eastern U.S. to significantly improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and/or fine particle pollution in other states. This rule replaces the EPA’s 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR).

The Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor (OUCC) has said it is concerned that Duke Energy has not demonstrated any “budgetary constraints” on the Edwardsport integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) project under construction near Vincennes, Ind. And, in a reversal of position, the state agency representing utility ratepayer interests recommended that the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) should not approve the company’s request for cost recovery for more than $2.35 billion.

Xcel Energy announced on Friday that it has reached a settlement with the federal government regarding costs incurred by Northern States Power Co. (NSP) and its customers because of the Department of Energy’s failure to begin removing used fuel from the company’s nuclear plant sites by a 1998 deadline. As a result, over $100 million will be returned to NSP customers in five states.

The Republican-led House Appropriation Committee on Monday approved an annual spending bill for fiscal year 2012 that would cut funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to $7.1 billion—18% less than requested. The bill would also suspend existing federal rules that limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary sources, prohibit the agency from issuing any rules limiting GHG emissions from stationary sources, and from issuing permits containing provisions to limit GHGs emissions from stationary sources during the next fiscal year.

The Canadian province of Québec last week issued draft rules for the operations of a greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade program based on guidelines from the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), of which it is a member. The draft regulation, now open for a 60-day public comment period, covers emissions of more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, and it applies to power sector and industrial emitters. If the rules go into effect, the province could have a working cap-and-trade program by Jan. 1, 2012.

New Hampshire’s Gov. John Lynch last week vetoed a bill that would have withdrawn the state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a regional carbon trading program whose members include nine other Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states. The governor said the bill would cost the state’s citizens jobs and hinder economic recovery.

Australia’s coal-fired power plants will have access to emergency federal loans to prevent financial failure and ensure power supplies. The government move is in response to a carbon tax set to be announced on Sunday.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s (AECL’s) CANDU reactor division is to be sold to Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. for C$15 million Canada’s natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, announced last Wednesday.

Last Thursday, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced offers of conditional commitments for loan guarantees of approximately $4.5 billion to support three alternating current cadmium telluride (Cd-Te) thin film photovoltaic (PV) solar generation facilities.

An explosion and fire at a French nuclear plant and jellyfish clogging Scottish and Israeli cooling water intakes were added to the list of challenges faced by nuclear and coal generators in the past week.

Last Wednesday, worsening flooding conditions along the Missouri River prompted the partial evacuation of nonessential workers from the Iatan Power Plant in Weston, Missouri, 40 miles north of Kansas City. The plant remains in operation.

For the first time in 37 years, the Japanese government ordered large customers to restrict electricity usage if they are in Tohoku Electric Power Co. Inc.’s or Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO’s) service territories, effective July 1. With the exception of essential services and powering cleanup operations at the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, large energy users are to cut consumption 15% below last summer’s levels.

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) announced last Wednesday that it has determined that Massey Energy officials kept two sets of safety records for the Upper Big Branch Mine (UBB) in Raleigh County, W.Va., site of a deadly explosion a year ago. Additional details, including evidence that miners faced intimidation that prompted them to ignore safety hazards, point to the conclusion that the accident last spring was preventable.

Last week, New Jersey’s Legislature passed legislation that affirmed the state’s involvement in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and banned the natural gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Neighboring New York, meanwhile, is poised to lift a moratorium on new shale gas drilling, and France has become the first country to ban fracking.

On June 30, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved PSEG Nuclear’s request to extend the operating licenses of Salem Generating Station Units 1 and 2 an additional 20 years. The decision was met by protests from environmentalists, who say that PSEG Nuclear has done too little to address leaks at the plant.

Last Thursday, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that eight projects in five states (California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Texas, and Utah) have been selected to receive up to $11.3 million to support the research and development of pioneering geothermal technologies.

Flooding that threatens two Midwest nuclear power plants and fire that reached the edge of the top U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory put U.S. nuclear safety in the news this week. Government officials responded with assurances that all facilities had adequately safeguards in place to ride out natural disasters.

Progress Energy Florida provided an update to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Florida Public Service Commission (FPSC) on Monday regarding the status of its Crystal River Nuclear Plant. Based on an initial review, the company believes that repairing the unit is the best option, and it is taking steps to complete more detailed engineering and construction analyses. The company estimates that the unit will return to service in 2014.

On Monday, federal regulators renewed the operating licenses for Xcel Energy Inc.’s Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant, Units 1 and 2, which will allow the plant to run for 20 more years. Four days earlier, Xcel shut down its other nuclear plant in Minnesota to repair a valve.

Dominion Virginia Power on Monday asked the Virginia State Corporation Commission for approval to convert three Virginia coal-burning power plants to biomass, saying the proposal had "strong customer benefits" and fit well with the company’s commitment to produce 15% of its power from renewable sources by 2025.

A U.S. District Court jury on Tuesday acquitted Xcel Energy and its subsidiary Public Service Co. of Colorado of criminal charges on five counts stemming from an October 2007 fire at the utility’s Cabin Creek hydropower plant near Georgetown, Colo., that killed five workers.

California’s First District Court of Appeal on Friday ruled that the state Air Resources Board (CARB) can proceed with implementation of a carbon cap-and-trade system. The ruling grants the state regulator a temporary stay on an order, pending the court’s decision, to halt work on the program that was issued by a San Francisco Superior Court judge on May 20.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on Tuesday that six projects in four states (California, Colorado, Florida, and New York) have been selected to receive nearly $7.5 million over two years to advance next-generation designs for wind turbine drivetrains.

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday unanimously decided that the Clean Air Act (CAA) and other efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas (GHGs)  “displace” any federal common-law right to “seek abatement of carbon dioxide emissions” from fossil fuel–fired power plants—including claims that GHG emissions constitute a “public nuisance.”

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in a new report that while all U.S. nuclear plant sites have had some groundwater contamination from radioactive leaks,  there was no discernable impact on the public’s health from radioactive leaks at three nuclear plants it investigated. It concludes, however, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) could better identify and characterize the leaks if it required transparent monitoring data from licensees.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it would hear an appeal from PPL Montana of a March 2010 Montana Supreme Court decision that would have forced the power company to pay accrued rent and interest worth some $56 million to the state of Montana for the use of riverbeds beneath the company’s hydroelectric plants—some which have been generating power for more than a century.

The EPA on Tuesday extended by 30 days the timeline for public input on the proposed mercury and air toxics standards, though it stressed that the extension would not alter the timeline for issuing the final standards in November 2011. The public comment period for the so-called Toxic Air rule will now end on August 4, 2011.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee today introduced legislation that directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop “achievable standards” for industrial boilers and incinerators and grants more time for the development of and compliance with those rules.

San Antonio’s CPS Energy on Monday announced it would mothball by 2018—15 years earlier than planned—its 871-MW coal-fired J.T. Deely Power Plant—instead of spending an estimated $3 billion on pollution controls to comply with anticipated environmental regulations. The nation’s largest municipal utility expects to replace the plant’s generation through conservation and future renewable sources.

The Department of Energy (DOE) doled out several loan guarantee offers worth a combined $919 million in the past week. Recipients of the conditional commitments include Mesquite Solar 1 for the development of a 150-MW photovoltaic (PV) solar project in Arizona; Calisolar Inc. to help commercialize its silicon solar manufacturing process; 1366 Technologies to develop a multicrystalline wafer-manufacturing project, and Granite Reliable Power for a 99-MW wind project.